KARACHI - As we entered the populated area of Azizabad, the power centre of Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), we saw barriers erected on the entrance of all streets leading towards Nine Zero, the headquarters of Karachi’s most powerful party.
After taking a U-turn a few away from Makkah Chowk, the roundabout showing the sign of fist, I along with my three fellow journalists stopped the vehicle along a barricade and introduced ourselves as journalists to the personnel standing there to performing their security duty in plain clothes, but without any weapon. Later, a senior leader of MQM told us that these were the volunteers who performed security duties as the party was facing threats for speaking openly against the Taliban.
The MQM workers referred us to the next barricade where the persons in plain clothes had already been informed of our scheduled visit and they let us enter the road leading towards Nine Zero. Then on the next picket, we were asked to get out of the car and we had to walk a few meters in the 20-foot-wide street to reach Begum Khursheed Trust Memorial Hall, named after the mother of MQM chief Altaf Hussain, from where Rabita Committee operates.
Khursheed Memorial Hall is a four-storey building with three entry and exit gates and has a vast area having a lawn as compared to the other houses of the area as each house in the locality has the area of approximately 120 yards.
The area around Nine Zero is neat and clean with carpeted roads unlike other parts of the metropolitan city that has heaps of garbage and faulty traffic signals. While we were walking on foot in the street, we saw posters of Altaf Hussain inscribed with words of APMSO (All Pakistan Muttahida Students Organisation and former All Pakistan Mohajir Students Organisation) on every electricity or telephone poll of the street. Similar kinds of posters were hanging on polls of the main road from where we had entered Azizabad area. Later, we were told that MQM has recently celebrated the foundation day of APMSO, the organisation from where Altaf Hussain started his politics that later became the basis of formation of Mohajir Qaumi Movement (MQM) and came into mainstream politics with the name of Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM).
At the reception of the Khursheed Memorial Hall, Ahsan Ghauri, a member of the media team of MQM, welcomed us and took us to the main meeting room. After some minutes, Aminul Haq, former MNA and deputy parliamentary leader of MQM in NA as well as member of the party’s CEC, and Shabbir Qaimkhani, former Sindh minister and member of MQM Rabita Committee, joined us.
The MQM leaders were bombarded with tough questions about allegations of extortion and extra-judicial killings, but they maintained their calm and answered with patience.
“This is a misperception in the minds of people of Punjab and Islamabad about the party,” Aminul Haq said, adding that despite all these allegations MQM had won most seats of NA and provincial assembly from Karachi. Aminul Haq accepted that the party was facing allegations of extortion and sack-packed dead bodies and forced voting, but he refuted all these allegations.
“It is true that we collect Fitrana from the party workers, but we have a record of all that and run ambulance service and other programmes for the welfare of the community,” he said. However, both the leaders also avoided to give some answers related to some controversial remarks of Altaf Hussain. Shabbir Ahmed Qaimkhani claimed MQM was the only party that had an internal accountability system as public representatives were answerable not only to the masses but to the party leadership. “Altaf Bhai used to ask sitting ministers to give back the keys of the official vehicles and go back home over their bad performance,” he said.
We were then escorted to the main room of the Rabita Committee from where the party chief speaks to the committee members and issues directions. There are different kinds of speakerphones lying on the table and a number of LED TVs hang on the main wall of the room.
Senior MQM leader Dr Farooq Sattar, MQM Senator Barrister Saif Ali and ex-MNA Dr Abdul Qadir Khanzada welcomed us in the room. “Altaf Bhai is a binding force for us,” Dr Farooq Sattar said. Sattar admitted that the party was facing one of the toughest times in its history and regretted that the party sometimes had to use slogan of Mohajir politics due to some external pressure though it did not want to use it anymore. On the other side of the corridor lies conference room from where party leadership holds press conferences. There are Sindh, Punjab, KP, Balochistan, Gilgit-Baltistan and other sections located in different rooms of the hall. At the entrance of Begum Khursheed Memorial Hall, there is a public complaint cell of the party. “This cell works round the clock and at least one party MNA or MPA sits here to hear public complaints,” Shabbir Qaimkhani said.
Some party voters, along with the sector in-charge Farhan Hashmi, were present in the complaint cell. As we were standing at the main entrance of the complaint cell, Waqar Hussain Shah, MPA from Karachi, had just come to do his duty in the cell. He walked with us towards the old residence of Altaf Hussain, now called Nine Zero.
After walking a few meters from Khursheed Memorial Hall, we took right turn toward Nine Zero. It is a small 120-yard house like other houses in the locality. There is a kite portrait placed outside the house, the election symbol of MQM. A small drawing room is decorated with old sofas and a four-post simple bed. Ahsan Ghauri told us Altaf Bhai had been meeting with eminent politicians of the country, including Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto, in that room before he went into self-exile in 1992. In another room of the house, there is a telephone exchange of the party from where the whole Rabita Committee and other party local leaders remain in coordination with one another. We were informed that Altaf Hussain usually speaks to public outside this house.
The visit of media cell of MQM was very surprising as MQM has state-of-the-art equipment and modern techniques of media monitoring. At Nine Zero, Cyber Communication Department of the party operates in one of the rooms, which deals with the social media. On the first floor of Nine Zero, electronic media monitoring cell of MQM operates with dozens of LED TVs hanging on the walls with big cupboards of DVR (digital video recorder) system.
“We record all the news channels operating in Pakistan round the clock and we have a system which even if we lock this room and go home, the system will automatically work,” a worker of electronic media monitoring wing said. He said they had six months archived data of recording of each channel.
A worker at print media cell said, “We issue morning and evening slugs; morning slugs includes complete monitoring about MQM coverage in national and local dailies and evening slug includes the press releases issued by the party for the day.”
Ghauri informed us that international communications department of MQM deals with foreign media and it also has a separate archives department.

ISLAMABAD: Muttahida Qaumi Movment (MQM) leader Farooq Sattar said on Wednesday that his party was being politically victimized and pushed against the wall.

Putting forward his party’s stance on the Karachi operation in the National Assembly, Sattar said a conspiracy has been hatched against the MQM and the party’s arrested workers were not being presented in court.

Sattar told the National Assembly that over 40 workers of the party had been killed extra-judicially.

According to the MQM leader, houses of party workers were being raided in Karachi.

Sattar further said that a ban has been enforced on social and charitable activities of the party while television channels have been instructed against live broadcast of MQM chief Altaf Hussain’s speeches.

“MQM is being pushed against the wall and the path is being cleared for another in the local bodies elections,” Sattar said. He also stated that the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) was being helped in Karachi.

Following the assembly session, lawmakers from the MQM submitted their resignations to National Assembly Speaker Ayaz Sadiq.

Farooq Sattar spoke with reporters after the resignations were accepted and said MQM had resigned from the NA, Senate and Sindh Assembly. The MQM leader emphasised that the decision to resign was a political one and in protest.

“The Karachi operation is not against criminals and terrorists,” Sattar said.

The MQM leader alleged that the objective of security forces in Karachi was not to prove cases against accused in court but rather to keep them detained indefinitely.

The Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) is unhappy with the way the constituencies have been redrawn by the Sindh government as it merges the province’s rural and urban areas — regions that the party wishes to keep separate.

Visibly upset with the delimitation carried out ahead of the local government elections scheduled in October, MQM lawmakers Sardar Ahmed, Kunwar Naveed and Dr Farooq Sattar have filed petitions in the Sindh High Court, through their lawyer Farogh Naseem. They have cited the Sindh government and the election commission as respondents and challenged the new demarcation of the constituencies.

“The primary objective of our petitions against delimitation is that the urban areas remain separated from the rural areas,” said Ahmed. “Why are they being mixed up?”

‘Troubling’ areas

The party has so far filed petitions against delimitation in 10 areas of Sindh, including Karachi, Hyderabad, Mirpurkhas, Tando Adam, Tando Muhammad and Nawabshah, pointed out MQM Rabita Committee’s Aminul Haque.

The party feels that areas in Malir and Korangi districts have been merged into each other, while urban parts of Mirpurkhas, Tando Adam and Tando Muhammad have been joined with rural areas, which dilutes its vote bank.

Hurting vote bank

The MQM is of the belief that their vote bank in urban areas on Sindh has increased but the current delimitation impacts their voting strength negatively. Ahmed explained with the help of an example. If there are 100 MQM votes in one union council of an urban area, and if the area is merged with the rural, then the people who were previously in the rural areas, will give their votes to another political party, limiting MQM’s chances of victory.

The party has also called for a fresh census, saying that in areas where the population has increased, the people are not registered and hence demarcation has not been done according to the population.

Political influence

In the court, the MQM pointed out that it is the PPP-led Sindh government that is carrying out the delimitations, and not the election commission. Senator Farogh Naseem, who is currently out of the country, had claimed in a recent press conference, that the delimitation was illegal and called it ‘pre-poll rigging’.

“The delimitations are carried out according to the whims and wishes of the Sindh government,” he had said. “It is the work of the election commission to carry out delimitation.”

Provincial election commissioner Tanveer Zaki brushed aside MQM’s accusations and said that it is a political statement. “The work of the delimitation is of the election commission and we will respond in the court against their claims,” he said.

PPP Senator Saeed Ghani pointed out that when the delimitation was done according to the MQM’s wishes during Musharraf’s time and before, the MQM was happy with it. Now when things are being corrected, they have filed complaints, he said. He insisted that it was the election commission that carried out the delimitation process and not Sindh government. “The government is only providing resources to the election commission as it doesn’t have manpower and resources,” he clarified.